The Fox Lake police officer who died in a suicide staged to look like a murder had a troubled history at the department, including suspensions and allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation, according to documents released from the officer's personnel file.

The release of Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz's file capped a week in which his public image as a heroic public servant, purportedly killed in the line of duty, gave way to reveal a troubled cop who allegedly stole from the public, according to authorities.

Gliniewicz, a 30-year veteran and fixture in the north suburban community, took his own life after he grew worried he could face consequences for years of alleged theft from the youth program he ran, according to the Lake County Major Crime Task Force.

A copy of Gliniewicz's personnel file released by the village documented trouble reaching back decades before the 52-year-old died Sept. 1. The file shows an officer whose career was marked by drunken indiscretions, sexual misconduct and threatening behavior.

Gliniewicz' file includes a 2009 letter to Fox Lake's mayor from anonymous members of the Police Department who said Gliniewicz's conduct and lack of consequences for it had "destroyed morale in the department."

Among the accusations backed up by other records in his personnel file was a report from May 1988 that Gliniewicz was found "passed out" in the driver's seat of his truck on the shoulder of a Fox Lake road, with the engine running and his foot on the gas. Officers took Gliniewicz home and towed his truck, but when he awoke later that day he had no memory of what happened and reported his truck as stolen to the Lake County sheriff's office. He later said he'd been drinking after playing volleyball with friends.

According to the letter reporting the incident, a sheriff's deputy said it "was not the first time that something like this had happened."

Three months later he received a two-day suspension for failing to report for duty after he said he'd had a couple of drinks after a volleyball game with friends, according to personnel records.

He received another suspension in 2001 for alleged sexual acts with an officer he supervised, who accused him in court of sexual harassment.

When asked how an officer with such history remained a celebrated and promoted member of the city's force, Fox Lake Mayor Donny Schmit on Friday referred questions to the village spokesman. The spokesman said Friday that Gliniewicz's troubling personnel file should have been a red flag for the Police Department's past top brass.

"We are asking the same questions, but it appears that the breakdown was in leadership," village spokesman Dave Bayless said. "We are looking at a total failure of leadership regarding promotion decisions. The promotion of a police officer to a higher rank with more responsibility should be careful, should be deliberate."

As the investigation into Gliniewicz's alleged criminal activity continues — and authorities say they are looking at other people who may have been involved — officials also confirmed that the lieutenant allegedly discussed hiring someone to kill a village official.

Detective Christopher Covelli with the Lake County sheriff's office said Gliniewicz wrote in Facebook messages sent to a woman in April that he was "being forced to retire" by Village Administrator Anne Marrin and was "close to entertaining a meeting with a mutual acquaintance of (ours) with the word White in their nickname."

The woman, who is not being identified because she is not part of the ongoing investigation, claimed the message referred to a "high-ranking motorcycle gang member," according to Covelli, and that Gliniewicz discussed hiring him to "initiate a hit" on Marrin.

But when investigators interviewed the gang member, he denied taking part in the conversation and "the lead hit a dead end," Covelli said.

Gliniewicz shot himself in a suicide that was "carefully staged" to look like a homicide as it became clear that his "extensive criminal acts" — including seven years of theft from the village's Explorer youth police training program — could be exposed during a review of village finances and practices, Lake County Major Crime Task Force commander George Filenko said.

Authorities said Gliniewicz took thousands of dollars from the youth program for personal travel, loans, cash and adult websites. His staged suicide in September led to a massive manhunt for three people the officer had alleged he was checking into shortly before he was found dead. Authorities said the officer had extensive experience making mock scenes for the youth program. After a multiagency investigation, authorities found extensive financial records, text messages and forensic evidence that showed Gliniewicz killed himself to avoid further scrutiny for alleged criminal acts, Filenko said.

Other messages authorities said they recovered from Gliniewicz's phone appeared to suggest threats against Marrin. During one exchange with an unnamed person in May, he wrote, "Trust me ive thougit through MANY SCENARIOS from planting things to the volo bog!!!"

Volo Bog State Natural Area is an extensive marshy area near Fox Lake.

Investigators looked into the possibility that Gliniewicz's reference to "planting things" was connected to an evidence bag of cocaine found in his desk after his death, Covelli said. There was no indication that the evidence bag was related to one of Gliniewicz's cases, or any open controlled substances cases in the department, but Covelli said authorities were not sure how he planned to use it.

Covelli said Thursday he could neither confirm nor deny that investigators were looking into any roles played by Gliniewicz's wife and oldest son, which The Associated Press has reported.

Other entries in his personnel file fit the image of the man laid to rest after a funeral that drew thousands to mourn an officer portrayed as a dedicated public servant who gave his life to the village.

Amid numerous commendations was a 2001 appointment by the local district of the Boy Scouts of America as leader of law enforcement Explorer posts in the Chicago area, and Gliniewicz received several letters from organizations that worked with the youth group he ran. Another letter writer said he thought he "wouldn't have made it" if Gliniewicz hadn't stopped to help him after he got a flat tire on a cold winter night.

But in 2003, a dispatcher accused him of talking about putting "bullets in her chest" and her body in a lake. In a letter reporting the incident, she said she felt threatened at the time but later concluded the comment was made in jest after she was behaving in an immature and disrespectful way and no longer believed it was a threat.

Two days later, she sent another letter to the police chief saying Gliniewicz had intimidated her by bringing a gun into the room where she was working and that, given his previous comments, she was afraid, upset and angry. In Gliniewicz's report on the incident, he said they both laughed at the comment at the time and she later told him she did not feel intimidated or threatened.

A few weeks later he was accused of giving himself access to a sensitive recording system without authorization. Around the same time, the chief eliminated his position leading support services in part because of "problems with the communications division." The chief warned him that similar actions in the future could result in disciplinary action, but there was no record of additional consequences related to the incident and he later was promoted to lieutenant.

The anonymous letter from fellow police officers in 2009 also references a 2003 federal lawsuit in which former police Officer Denise Sharpe Gretz accused Gliniewicz, her former supervisor, of sexual harassment. The village's lawyers acknowledged in court papers that the woman engaged in sex acts with Gliniewicz five times in 2000 and that he was suspended for 30 days.

Gliniewicz's personnel records fill out the portrait of a troubled officer, adding to the extensive details authorities released about his criminal past, and suicide. The suicide determination provoked sharp questioning about why police — who worked early in the investigation to discourage the idea that he'd killed himself — took two months to call Gliniewicz's death a suicide, even though questions about the evidence for the murder theory sprang up almost immediately.

Authorities Friday continued to defend the investigation's pace.

Gliniewicz competently masked his suicide as a homicide, Filenko said. The pathology results and other tests available in the early part of the investigation did not suggest suicide, the commander said, and police felt it was plausible that three assailants could have gotten the best of Gliniewicz, possibly holding him at gunpoint before executing him. While investigators did see his personnel file almost immediately, they were scouring it for possible leads toward murder suspects, Filenko said.

More than a week passed after his death before investigators fully interviewed members of Gliniewicz's family. Police waited, the commander said, to be sensitive but also because they thought it would be practical for his family members to "have their minds clear" before speaking to police.

When family members did talk, they provided no evidence suggesting Gliniewicz killed himself, Filenko said.

"For several weeks, this was completely a homicide investigation," he said, though he noted that investigators did not fully discount any theory.

Authorities only came to believe Gliniewicz had killed himself in the three weeks before Wednesday's announcement, Filenko said. They were persuaded by "selectively deleted" text messages indicating he'd been trying to cover up financial malfeasance and considered harming the village manager, Filenko said.

In those weeks, the commander said, police also first got access to banking records and more advanced ballistics tests that suggested suicide. It was not until the last tests came in that authorities determined the muzzle of his gun had been shoved under his vest before the fatal shot, making it appear less likely anyone else pulled the trigger, Filenko said.

"At some point, this took a turn," he said.

Former Fox Lake Mayor Ed Bender, who lost the 2013 election to Schmit, said he had no idea that Gliniewicz had a troubled history with the Police Department. Bender, who served as a village trustee for eight years before serving one term as mayor, said he was unaware that anonymous police officers had complained in 2009 about Gliniewicz's behavior in a letter to then-Mayor Cynthia Irwin.

Irwin could not be reached Friday.

"He was always very professional around me. He was very professional around the other trustees. I had a good relationship with him. It was always 'yes sir, no sir,'" said Bender, 78.

"I'm sad. I am very, very sad for the whole village," Bender added. "I didn't know he was stealing."

Dr. William Dam, 72, served as Fox Lake's mayor from 1985 to 1989 and recalls Gliniewicz as a rookie cop who helped him set his own son straight.

"I was the mayor who hired him. I don't remember any problems," Dam said. "I remember my children not being saints and he was a real good advocate and steered kids in the right direction."

In fact, his son, Case Dam, went on to become a lawyer, he said, in part because of Gliniewicz's positive influence.

Dam said he had displayed a billboard sign on his commercial property supporting Gliniewicz and "of course it's been vandalized," he said. "I took the sign down of course. They painted a caricature of officer Gliniewicz that was very distasteful."

"I give Officer Gliniewicz the benefit of the doubt, that he meant to pay it back," Dam said, adding that he does not approve of the alleged thefts. "You should always have two people sign the checks."

The village's spokesman, Bayless, pointed to the former police chiefs, who would have gone before the Fox Lake Fire and Police Commission to recommend promotions.

"It's the chief's job to identify leaders and promote leaders who can serve the community," Bayless said. "The job is to find the right person for the job and not to take care of people you have personal relationships with."

The village is conducting a national search for a new police chief and plans to tighten up the process used in evaluating and promoting officers, he said.

He said village trustees only recently learned of the threats to Marrin, as well as disciplinary records in Gliniewicz's personnel file — at the same time as the general public.

Former police chief Michael Behan could not be reached.

When asked if there could have been more oversight within the department and the village, Bender said, "It's one of those things you can always second-guess. Looking back it's probably something we should have done."

A version of this article appeared in print on November 07, 2015, in the News section of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "A troubled tenure - Gliniewicz's personnel file reveals allegations of sexual harassment, suspensions - investigation of Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz" —
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